The present invention relates to a package for elongated articles and more particularly to a needle holder enabling easy extracting and returning a desired needle by utilization of a sliding construction of its component parts.
A conventional needle holder includes a sheet cover having a retention portion, and a small retaining piece for a plurality of needles detachably fitted within the retention portion of the sheet cover. With such a needle holder the desired needle is extracted from the small retaining piece by wrapping the sheet cover and then extracting the small retaining piece from the retention portion of the sheet cover.
Since conventional needle holders are generally made of a paper material, repeated extracting and restoring of the small retaining piece relative to the sheet cover may result in deformation of the needle holder. Therefore, it cannot be expected that such a needle holder will have high durability. Such a needle holder has further disadvantages in that it requires the troublesome steps of unwrapping the sheet cover, extracting the small retaining piece from the retention portion of the sheet cover and extracting a desired needle from the small retaining piece. Further, although the sheet cover is generally provided with an inspection window for inspecting the needles retained therein, a user cannot inspect those needles which do not appear in the inspection window and therefore may overlook rust, damage and discoloration of some needles.